This story is part of a new Streetwise series on “How It’s Made” in Sheboygan. The series will help give a behind-the-scenes look at how businesses and crafters across Sheboygan County make the goods you may use or consume every day. Want to know how something is made? Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332, agarner@gannett.com or on Twitter at @alexx_garner and we'll find out for you.
SHEBOYGAN - Grant Pauly, brewmaster and owner of 3 Sheeps Brewing Company, 1837 North Ave., said the cool thing about making beer is that the basic process has always been the same.
He said it all starts with mixing malt, primarily from barley, with sugar and hot water to convert the starches into sugars.
During the malting process, which can use several malts to get different notes, like honey, cherry and caramel, the husks and grains are recirculated over a filter.
“What happens is the husks compact down onto themselves," he said. "So we're running that water from underneath to the top and it creates almost like a coffee filter.”
The clear liquid that results from the filtering process is sent to a kettle to boil, where it kills any bacteria. There, the liquid is reduced to create a thicker concentration of sugars to raise the alcohol level. Hops are also added.
“If you add hops early in the process, that's going to give you your bitterness,” Pauly said. “If you have your grapefruit, your citrus, your orange — those are from late-addition hops.”
The liquid is then sent to a whirlpool, which Pauly said is the most rudimentary piece of equipment.
“It's a flat-bottom container that we send it (the liquid) around in a circle," he said. "And what that does is it sends all the big matter that's left in there to the center and makes a cone, so we can pull off the side and leave that there, so we don't have to filter. It's just a way for all those hops to not go into our fermenter and create kind of a vegetal flavor.”
Next is the fermenter, where different yeast strains are added, depending on the kind of beer they’re making.
“Most people attribute whenever you have those hoppy flavors or tropical flavors, it all comes from the hops in there, but it's not actually the case,” Pauly said. “Yeast can impart a lot of these flavors, and they do so in a way that have longer longevity because hops fade over time."
When the beer is done fermenting, they “crash” it, turning down the temperature to 32 degrees Fahrenheit to let it settle.
The beer is sent to larger conical fermenters, where racking arms are used to separate the beer from the yeast at the bottom. From there, the beer is carbonated and packaged.
On the packaging side of operations, 3 Sheeps has a canning line, which cans 225 cases of beer an hour, and a kegging line, which kegs about 40 half barrels an hour.
Pauly said the brewing process is pretty simplistic.
“For brewing beer, the joke is, ‘All we need is a boiler, a glycol system and three pumps,’” he said.
Though the basic brewing process hasn’t changed, 3 Sheeps has implemented more specific controls for temperature, boil time, hop additions and filtering.
They've also added a centrifuge, which separates liquid from solids, that has let them set exact levels of clarity after they crash the liquid, whether for a Pilsner or hazy beer. The centrifuge also helps with creating consistency.
3 Sheeps is also able to make more beer now, which Pauly said allows them to blend more batches together, creating more consistency, because each batch is slightly different.
“Brewing is two parts," he said. "One, you have the science to kind of go, ‘Does this make a good beer once?’ But now I got to make it again. That’s where it gets kind of complicated, that’s where the science comes in.”
Depending on the type, beer can take a week to more than a year to brew.
Since powdery mildew infections destroyed many hops plants in Wisconsin, 3 Sheeps buys a lot of its hops out-of-state, like from Washington state, Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
But despite previous challenges, Pauly said there are efforts in Wisconsin to defend hops against powdery mildew, specifically helping farmers access equipment.
"The toughest part about hops is the process of palletizing because once you harvest them you have to process within 24 hours," Pauly said. "So it's really tough on farmers to say, 'You know, I'm going to turn my crop over. I can't really use that crop for a few years until it matures, and then I need to buy new software for the equipment.'
"There was a group that eight years ago bought the equipment and lets farmers bring in their crop to process themselves, so now farmers can turn over an acre or 2 acres to hops to start using it," he said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison's Clean Hop Program also helped research ways to eliminate powdery mildew from hop plants in the state.
Pauly said 3 Sheeps is getting closer to using more Wisconsin hops in its beer, with hopes to integrate more into future recipes.
3 Sheeps sources other ingredients, like malt, and manufacturing goods, like tanks, tap handles, keg collars and cartons and cans, from around the state.
“It really is kind of shocking how much is here that we can keep in state, and I love it because buying local is important for most people that drink craft beer,” Pauly said. “So we're able to do the same thing and keep that circle going so that we can buy local as much as possible.”
When 3 Sheeps first started at its current location, Pauly said they made about 7,000 barrels of beer.
This year, 3 Sheeps will make about 15,000 barrels and release about 85 different beers, six that are usually consistent and others that are rotated or have small releases.
Pauly said one of his favorite things about craft beer is going to a bar and trying something he's never had before.
“I want to try something new and different, and that's how a lot of people buy as well," he said. "We want to give those folks something that they like, so that they have a chance to buy a really crazy hazy with hops from New Zealand or a big Imperial Stout with coconut (and) walnuts.”
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Experimenting and creating new beers was something 3 Sheeps found success with during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pauly said they probably released 165 new beers the first year.
“It took us back to our old homebrew days because when you're homebrew you rarely make the same recipe twice,” he said. “It's always about trying to do something new, try new ingredients and recipes. It kind of reinvigorated us from that standpoint of like, ‘Let's make sure when this is passed, and we can get back to a lot of our core beers, we don't lose sight of that.'”
Through small releases at the taproom and the Barrel Society, which lets a small group of people try their barrel-aged beer, customers are involved in the process.
“We don't have the ability to do small sensories or test panels like a lot of big companies have," Pauly said. "That isn't really for us. We have this great mechanism when people come in all the time and are trying stuff and (we) are always eager to get feedback.”
Some beers, like their pilsner, copper lager Armchair Quarterback and hazy IPA Chaos Pattern, have grown from seasonal or small releases.
Brewing a large variety of styles of beers and a hard seltzer, Pauly said 3 Sheeps wants to be something for everyone in Wisconsin.
“I think we're still trying to figure out what kind of brewery we want to be when we grow up,” he said. “I think our goal right now is just be able to be a fixture in everyone's fridge and just be a part of whatever they're doing, whether it's kayaking ... or an engagement party.
"And whatever size that means, it means. We're going to keep enjoying it and growing," he said. "We kind of joke we all want to get old making beer together. So we're on our way to that.”